A salty night was had by all!

Just thought to post a couple of images from the launch of The Silver Darlings at the excellent Gosh! Comics last Friday evening.

The band of fellows above are The City Shanty Band. Whilst their experience at sea may be limited, their shanties were an unforgettable part of the evening and drew many an intrigued wanderer-by into the shop.

This here is the very first book of the night I signed. More accurately this is the "illustration" of a robot unicorn I scrawled across the poor young man pictured's sketchbook. You can see more robo-corns at the Robot Unicorn Tumblr.

Exhibit C is the original design for the painting destined for Gosh!'s windows and below is the window emblazoned.

This was considerably easier than the Nelson window painting I worked on, always at the mercy of the Posca pens. Gosh!'s rich supply of colours even allowed me to top the character's dome with a crown of ginger.

All that remains to be said is a huge thank you to Gosh!, The City Shanty Band, Tunnock's (for their exquisite Caramel Logs), Blank Slate Books and of course to all the hardy souls that come along on the night.

Thank you!

Launching the Silver Darling - Gosh! Comics, 15th Feb, 7-9pm

I'm starting to run thin on sea-faring puns to tie in with references to my book The Silver Darlings, which launches at London's incomparable Gosh! Comics on Friday 15 February. This post's title refers to the fishing boat at the heart of the book, the Silver Darling, and deserves little more explanation than that.

The folk at Gosh! and especially Tom Oldham of Beserker Magazine and Breakdown Press have been really supportive of the book, for which I'm very grateful. This all kicked off with an exclusive bookplate edition of 200 (pictured below), which is still available free with every copy of the book bought at Gosh!

  

Next up is the launch itself. Details are on the flyer below.

I'm currently working on a design for the shop's window and on the night there will be an exhibition of original art whilst I merrily sign and sketch in copies of The Silver Darlings. 

Of course no launch would be complete without a a wee drink for all those that come along and what's more Caramel Logs (as rare as hen's teeth south of the border) are being generously laid on by Tunnock's. If you want to discover the secret behind Tunnock's Caramel Logs listen to the ad at this link (NB: No dragons are harmed in the making of Tunnock's Caramel Logs).

Finally, the salt-crust that will lend the evening a truly nautical flavour is a performance from Hackney's own City Shanty Band. I'll leave you with one of their numbers and hope to see you on the night!

Standing on the shoulders of giants

I've recently treated myself to the opportunity to draw characters created by a couple of beacons of UK comics, Glyn Dillon and Warwick Johnson Cadwell...

Nao Brown - Glyn's book is totally unique, utterly absorbing and beautifully, beautifully drawn. But don't take my word for it, take the word of the Angouleme Festival judging panel who awarded it the Prix Spécial du Jury.

Hunch Parsons - Shrouded in mystery it seems Hunch may take a little while to surface. Thankfully we can console ourselves with Warwick's upcoming run on Tank Girl and Dangeritis his web-comic based game of tag with the equally excellent Robert Ball.

Open Studios at Coburg House - 11:00 - 17:00, 1st & 2nd December

I'm taking part in my first open weekend at Coburg House Art Studios in Leith. If you're knocking about Edinburgh today or tomorrow between 11am and 5pm, why not drop in and take a look at the great work on show...there may even be a free glass of wine in it for you.

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain..."

I recently decided that I could make use of a better showcase for my work and set about creating a portfolio website, which went live today. The quote from A.A. Milne sprung to mind because I approached the task with spectacularly little technical expertise and in spite of that have managed to create something, which is near enough to what I aspired to.

Naturally most of the credit for this achievement lies elsewhere, with the excellent foundations Wordpress provide and the community of developers creating tools such as Nextgen Gallery and Ultimate TinyMCE. I marvel at these folks, who seem to dedicate their free time to helping those of us with analogue brains.

Thanks awarded, this blog will still be the destination for updates. Such as the illustration below:

Inspired by Jeff Smith's incredibly elegant linework in his Bone series, this marks my first effort using a brush in place of a fine-liner or nib-pen.

Stripped to the bone

A boat I'd seen beached on a shingle bay in a small village in the Scottish Highlands provided the inspiration for this image. It's innards were all brazenly on show, including the porcelain throne that perhaps once was the only sanctuary from the cramped conditions on board.

Colour is something I'm continuing to practise. In a recent interview the excellent Glyn Dillon mentioned a blog by comic colourist Jordie Bellaire who extracts lovely, harmonious colour pallettes from movies and the like. Well worth exploring.

Jack's Amazing Journey

I recently had the good fortune to be involved in a project to encourage oral story-telling throughout Europe. These drawings are from the tale Jack's Amazing Journey, which continues the scrapes he of the beanstalk fame frequently finds himself in. One of the project's highlights were some beautiful Icelandic folk-songs of which I'd like to hear more.

The Hairlet

Many moons ago a posted a quick sketch of a young lad cowering beneath his bed-sheets with an ominous presence at the window. That idea has since percolated through my grey matter, to become a very short story set to appear in David O'Connell's sure to be excellent Ink and Paper volume II. He released a preview of the cover just the other day and I'm sure there will be plenty more tasty morsels to follow.

A character sketch

A character developed for a four page story in David O'Connell's Ink+Paper 2, due out in June. He's got the oversized school blazer, I just need to work out how to include the obligatory nose-trails on the sleeves.

"Nelson, Nelson every where..."

"...but plenty a drop to drink."

This perversion of Coleridges's Rime of the Ancient Mariner refers of course to the stellar launches of British comics anthology Nelson at the Cartoon Museum and Gosh comics (covered here) last week.

For the latter event I had a great time scrawling all over Gosh's windows with Sarah Macintyre, Jake and Woodrow Phoenix, the results of which are pictured below:

The source illustration for my window adornment was the character sketch I sent to the editors of Nelson (Rob Davis and Woodrow) prior to drawing my five page chapter for the year 1999.